Residents have told of the moment a devastating fire ripped through their homes in an east London village – and how they think it could have been avoided.
Landlord Walter Martin was in Leonards pub in Wennington on Tuesday afternoon when he received a phone call from a neighbor asking if the building was on fire.
“He said ‘There’s smoke coming out of the back of your pub, have you lit’ and I said ‘No,'” the 61-year-old told The Independent.
“I walked the 400 meters to the fire station and there was smoke coming out of the first house I saw.
“The fire jumped everywhere. A beautiful house, about 200 years old, it literally just went up.
Mr Martin described how the tight-knit community was desperately trying to fight the fast-spreading flames.
“We’re persistent,” he said. “We were going to try to put it out. There’s an old boy down there who saved his home – refused to leave. He uses a hose.
“Farmers were trying to hose down the grass and trees to stop them getting here and B&P metals had big water tanks and they soaked all the fields and that stopped a lot of them.
“Everyone helped pitch in; all the young lads got the hoses out and helped the firemen roll them down the road when they arrived.
Pub landlord Walter Martin described the fire in Wennington as ‘devastating’ and said ‘you never expect it to be on your doorstep’
(The Independent)
Mr Martin, who was at Lenards with his wife and two daughters on Wednesday, said pub cleaner Lynn had been forced to evacuate her home with her husband, who has a lung condition.
“She just collapsed,” he said. “Everything is in her house. Her house is her castle.
“It’s devastating; you hear about it happening in places like Australia and California, but you never expect it to be on your doorstep. The fire is terrible. Fire is destruction.
His daughter Tara Martin, 24, immediately flew to London from Galway with her mother and younger sister when they heard about the fire. She believes the government needs to do more to tackle the climate crisis.
She told The Independent: “When I saw Lynn’s house on TV, I went back for her and my dad.
“My sister and I just automatically closed our eyes and said, ‘It’s global warming, it’s the climate crisis.’
“This could have been avoided. It is a small town on the outskirts of London; this could have been avoided.”
London experienced its worst fire day since World War Two as the UK was hit by record heat of 40.3C
(Getty Images)
One woman, who described an “apocalyptic” scene as she raced to rescue horses from her farm, said she learned her house had escaped the blaze almost 24 hours later.
“I have a lot of animals so I was able to get them out, but I didn’t know until two hours ago that my house was actually okay,” she said.
“We thought everything was gone, the farm. It got to the corner of our field and then the wind changed. This is a miracle.
“I was just poking around in the garden and then it got apocalyptic – there was a helicopter and a couple of crashes.”
Sumi Begum, 24, was waiting to board a bus outside the Harrow Lodge leisure center late on Wednesday afternoon, which was set up to take residents back to the scene of the fire for the first time since they were evacuated.
Sumi Begum, 24, said she was “shaking” when she realized the house she shared with 11 relatives had burnt down
(The Independent)
Villagers were put up at the leisure facility in nearby Hornchurch overnight, while others sought refuge at the Wennington Premier Inn and some stayed with family and friends.
Ms Begum was eager to return to the home she shared with her parents, five brothers, two sisters, cousin and sister-in-law to see how much of it had survived the fire.
The seller said she was at work on Tuesday when she saw two missed calls from her family and immediately knew something was wrong.
“They know never to call me at work, so I was a little worried,” she said.
“I answered them and my sister was crying; I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. She had come home from school to find our house on fire.
“My mother was there with my two sisters and my sister-in-law.
Residents evacuated during a devastating fire in Wennington, east London, prepared to return to the scene to assess the damage on Wednesday evening
(The Independent)
“When they first tried to call me they had just seen the smoke, but when I spoke to them they said the fire was huge and there was a lot of smoke.”
“I was shaking. I was very scared because I wasn’t there. I didn’t know how bad the situation was.”
A spokesman for Havering Council said 19 houses were destroyed, 56 buildings were damaged, including three farms and a number of vehicles.
Up to 40 hectares of lawns are also believed to be affected, the London Fire Brigade said.
Large parts of the village remained closed on Wednesday as emergency services continued to assess the damage at the site.
As a group of residents gathered at a police cordon to ask when they could return to their homes for medicine and other belongings, a police officer arrived with three animal transporters.
A couple have been reunited with a missing dachshund and kitten, while a pet rabbit was handed over to another resident.
Dramatic aerial footage of the area captured thick plumes of black smoke billowing from a row of collapsing houses
(Tony O’Brien/Reuters)
Dramatic aerial footage of the area captured thick plumes of black smoke billowing from a row of collapsing houses.
Local Tim Stock likened the wreckage to a scene from the Blitz after his family home of 60 years was destroyed by fire.
He believes the fire was caused by “spontaneous ignition” related to composting from a grass pile in another resident’s back garden. However, the cause of the fire has not yet been confirmed.
The capital experienced its worst fire day since the Second World War on Tuesday as the UK was hit by 40.3C heat – the hottest temperature on record.
It joined Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and South Yorkshire on Tuesday in declaring a major incident as fire crews across the country battled a wave of blazes.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said the London Fire Brigade had received more than 2,600 calls throughout the day – seven times the usual volume.
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